The LSB research, published yesterday, collates and cross-checks fee data from 1,500 UK law firms across 15 common legal services for individual clients. As well as uncovering a steep incline in fees between more affordable legal service providers and their costly counterparts, the research concluded that firms which fix fees for specific services and advertise them online are likely to be cheaper than those firms which do not advertise their fees or which vary them.
According to the LSB data, the prices for commoditised legal services vary by at least 37 per cent between cheaper and more expensive advisers, with a significant rift emerging between firms in the north and south-east of the UK. While the cheapest firm in the study charged just £150 for an uncontested divorce involving children, the fee climbed to as much as £17,000 for the most expensive firm in the study. Meanwhile, the cost of conveyancing was spread between £250 and £3,200 for the cheapest and most expensive firms respectively for identical freehold sales.
LSB chief executive Neil Buckley has emphasised that the survey results do not suggest that cheaper providers are necessarily the best option for prospective clients. Rather, the findings highlight the diversity of options available to legal service users and encourage 'shopping around' to find the best fit for individual circumstances. The study also comes ahead of a report on legal service affordability from the Competitions and Markets Authority (CMA) due for release in late summer, which many expect will be critical of inaccessible fee levels across the sector.
Sources: The Guardian; Law Society Gazette
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